The first draft rewind me back to 1996. I had long hair, no beard, the Internet didn’t exist and I played Chaos Strikes Back on Atari ST while listening to the Red Hots. And I figure some of you won’t understand there could have been a time without the Internet.

I draw that map so it loop back on itself from east to west, like an actual map of the world. It had all the elements encoutered in-game : a massive continent, vast unknown lands, many archipelagos and a great austral island.

jbgibson

11-14-2011, 01:25 AM

Merci, Elzevir. You have some interesting work going there. I look forward to future chapters in your saga :-).

furiousuk

11-14-2011, 02:25 AM

It's a fantastic map, I love the overall colour scheme. Not sure what all of the map lines represent though, there seems to be a polar region and then an overlayed square map but the orientation changes in the bottom-left corner.

The stone tablet on the map looks amazing

Eilathen

11-14-2011, 09:25 AM

I agree, the map looks awesome. And the tablet as well. But i for one "hate" them together because the damn tablet blocks half of the map :x
So, i vote for a tablet-free version of the map...i want to see it in all its glory.

Elzevir

11-14-2011, 05:52 PM

Thank you for your comments. There will be a tablet-free version and I will explain the lines. Meanwhile...

Still convinced my map needed a new breath, I tried multiple types of polar projections in Paint Shop Pro and Creative Studio 3D, but the results kept me unsatisfied. So I did it in a more traditional way : scissors, glue and a tennis ball.

I cut the map in many pieces and glued them on the ball to create the illusion of a… well, planet. Then I chose a perspective that pleased me and redraw it from scratch. Years later, I discovered that this particular point of view was a "Peirce’s quincuncial projection" (hence the strangeness of the lines), that allows seeing both poles on the same plane.

For the crazies of map projections, I found this very interesting site here : progonos.com (http://www.progonos.com/furuti/MapProj/Dither/ProjConf/projConf.html).

Carstairs

11-15-2011, 12:08 AM

Another vote to see the whole map, it's just beautiful. I also like the original, it's interesting to see the change between them. It's kind of like an early world map made from the very approximate charts of explorers.

After many tries, I eventually went to a draft I found more æsthetic, eye-pleasing, and very Final-Fantasy-like (it was 1999 and I almost played straight FF8 in a week with my best friend when I draw this). The idea of "looping" the map is still there : up and down, as left and right, can be joined.

It's 2003 and I have the Internet ! Okay, that’s still 56k, but at least…
After I decided myself for a realistic approach, I looked many sources for textures. I found a RPG online with a profusion of very high definition maps (well, it was HD, in 2003), on ADK – Terres de Leyt (http://terresdeleyt.free.fr/naug-land/leyt.html). I spent a few days understanding PaintShop Pro and made a lot of stamp/paste from it without figuring how to rotate an image…

Layers !! I eventually understood the concept of layers, since it took me five years to do so... I managed to draw many regions at the same time, without having to rasterize the whole thing each time i wanted to save, on a unique 50Mo bmp file...

I always had difficulties for the glaciers, so i just "whitened" the mountains to figure cold lands. I tried many times to create a sea ice under InkScape and Illustrator, but was never satisfied... I'll probably come back on this point in a future project.

Lukc

12-05-2011, 03:04 AM

Lovely WIP :)

Alex

12-05-2011, 03:12 AM

I agree, it is very lovely indeed! Take some rep! :D

Elzevir

12-11-2011, 08:11 PM

Thank you for your encouragements. At this point, I though my map was nearly over, mainly because I hadn't anymore ideas. Until I discovered this forum...

Now I have a beard, a job, and fewer time to spent on this map (mostly because of the beard). I also try to finish some novels I began writing years ago. Seems I am too dissipate to finish someth---
So, we are in 2010, and I discover this forum, thank to which I can go further in details, like for the seabed, from Tear’s Tutorial (http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?8086-Award-Winner-Saderan-%E2%80%93-a-tutorial&highlight=saderan) on his map of Saderan :

I made many changes on the colorimetry of the map, because I bought a new monitor... and it can change a lot about your color perceptions, especially if your goal is to print it. There is no magic adjustment : if you want to be sure, print a small version and adjust your colors in consequence....